Why humans are so distinct from other species?

[Annik]

I think there's a lot of human arrogance that dismisses animal intelligence. Primates have been taught pretty large vocabularies of hand signals. Animals have specific calls for specific dangers, that seems symbolic. Even insects communicate in quite complicated ways its just none of the popular journals will accept their submissions.

Primates have language in the same way dolphins are fish. Yes, dolphins live in the ocean, but they are mammals. Yes, primates can use sign (GSL is ASL altered to be able to sign with gorilla hands), but they have an extremely limited vocabulary. Unfortunately, I have to say that a lot of the research on gorillas and sign has been a bit inflated by the media. They are using some language, but it's no where near as sophisticated as human language (of which there is nothing else like it on Earth). A communication systems is not the same as a language, either. All of this may fall under a casual definition or language, but not a more academic one. It suffers from a similar problem as the word 'theory'.